Book Study: The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom (Part Two)

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All right. Well, for those that aren't able to make it with us live, who are going to listen to this later, we're going to start with a simple overview, just kind of walk through the two chapters together, and then we'll open it up for a

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Q &A, and then at the very end, we'll close it up with some final thoughts and applications for preaching and just for your own personal life, and then we'll call it quits for the night.

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So Justin, once you get us going, I know that you kind of had an outline. Let's walk through that outline and kind of dialogue just a little bit to get the juices flowing, and then we already got one question, we'll get a couple more in,

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I'm sure, as we're going. So in Renahan's book, he breaks down, after the introductory material that we covered last time, he considers three kingdoms, the kingdom of creation, the kingdom of Israel, and the kingdom of Christ, those distinctions.

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I mean, John and I were talking about it. I think they're helpful to some extent. Tonight, we're talking about the kingdom of creation, as Renahan would describe it and define it and outline it, and in talking about that kingdom of creation, we're talking about the covenant of works that God made with Adam in the garden, and we were talking about the covenant

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God made with Noah. And so we'll begin by talking about the covenant of works, which is the conditional covenant that God made with Adam in the garden of Eden, and where we might begin in thinking about that covenant, certainly as we would understand

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God being the creator of all mankind, making man uniquely in his image, being Adam's creator in a particular sense,

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Adam is obligated just by way of that creator -creature relationship to obey and do as his creator would have him do.

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That might be a way that we would talk about the natural law, the law of God in one sense that's been written on the hearts of man is written into us in creation in that regard.

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Sam talks about that in the book somewhat, but then when it comes to the covenant of works in particular, there is a distinction between just that natural relationship that Adam has as creature to creator, where God, on top of the obligation that Adam has by way of just being

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God's creation, God adds what we would call positive laws or positive commands onto that obligation.

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So this is where he outlines what Adam is to positively be doing. He prescribes

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Adam is to cultivate, he is to live in the garden and work it and protect it. He is to fill the earth and subdue it, et cetera.

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And then he also makes a prohibition that you are not to eat of this one particular tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so a positive law, just to be very clear, what we mean by that is that an action that in and of itself is not moral or immoral becomes so through a command given by God, and so the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is such a positive law.

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To eat of a tree is not inherently wicked, but when God says, this is good for you to do and this is bad for you to do, don't do that, to then do that becomes immoral at that point and it becomes sin because it is a violation of that positive law that God has given.

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Any comments there, John? Up to that. Yeah. So I'm curious how many are new, if you just throw it in the chat, how many are new to covenant theology, covenant of works, this is the first time reading this chapter, you've interacted with it, anybody at all say, yeah,

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I'm super new to covenant theology. Yep. Yep. Okay. So covenant theology, when it comes down to the covenant of works, this is not only important for your understanding of the baseline of covenant theology, but it's also really important to understand,

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I would say, redemption or an imputation theology. So imputation meaning that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us and our sin is imputed to Him.

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So working through this, what we really want and hope for you guys is that you have a really solid foundation and a lot of what

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Justin just said, if you have questions, if you're unfamiliar with what he said, you need to throw them into the

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Q &A. So Justin and I have been swimming in this pool and the water, it's not a shocker to us anymore.

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I can remember the first time I was introduced to covenant of works, the biggest pushback, which

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Rinehan gets into it in his book, is the word concept fallacy of, well, that is not in the

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Bible covenant of works, therefore I don't believe in it, which is a mistake to make because you're not understanding biblical covenant theology, you're not understanding biblical covenants and how they work.

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Yeah. It's worth saying, John, that the covenant of works is perhaps the one that is pushed back against more than any of the others, just because of the word concept fallacy and just the blowback that you get, because people will say, well, was it really a covenant that God made?

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And in particular, as we move forward to describe more aspects of this covenant, like the promises and the sanctions and things associated with it, people will ask questions and hopefully we'll get into some of that subject matter tonight in a way that's helpful.

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So let's get back to the covenant of works itself and think about it some more. The promises that God makes to Adam in reward for keeping this covenant, for doing as he is told, we would understand biblically, and Sam outlines this,

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I think, well in the book, that the reward for keeping this covenant of works and obeying the positive laws that God gave

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Adam would be eternal life in a blessed state that is secure and unshakable with God for eternity.

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And one of the ways that we would want to talk about that is via the covenant symbol of the tree of life that exists in the garden of Eden.

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And then as we trace that tree, in Genesis two, it first shows up, it's in the midst of the garden.

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Then in Genesis three, we see that God, because of Adam's violation of the covenant,

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God not only casts Adam and Eve out of the garden, out of his benevolent and immediate presence, there are cherubim set there to guard the way to the tree of life because Adam and Eve on their own no longer have access to that tree because they have violated the covenant that God made with them.

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And then that tree of life shows up again at the end of the Bible in Revelation chapter two and Revelation chapter 22, and those are significant passages because we see that the way to the tree of life is through Christ by persevering in Christ.

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And then in Revelation 22, in the consummation of all things, the tree of life is on both sides of the river that flows out of the throne of God.

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And obviously the redeemed are blessed forever around God and his presence in the presence of the tree of life for eternity.

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Another reason that we would argue that the promise to Adam for keeping the covenant of works is you will have eternal life is because of the relationship that we see that John hinted at already between Adam and Christ.

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We see that what we lost in Adam, we now have in Jesus and how in one sense, if Adam had been able to not fail, if Adam had kept the covenant, we would have received through Adam what we now receive through Jesus.

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And that also is a theological line of reasoning that many before us in the Reformed tradition have held to in understanding the covenant headship, the federal headship of Adam and Christ, and how

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Adam in that sense is a pattern for the work of Christ to come. Hope that makes some sense.

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John, please jump in and maybe unpack the promises piece in the eternal life piece. When you're being introduced to covenant theology, one of the things you have to do, even with the

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Bible, is understand that what is seen in the types and shadows or in a very small symbols and signs in hidden language becomes clear as the story unfolds.

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For instance, going back to the garden when God makes the promise to Adam and Eve, we get into this a little bit later in the book, but before he brings the curse upon Adam and Eve for their disobedience to the covenant, in the curse to the serpent, he gives the promise of grace.

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And early on, that is so small. It's one line through you,

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Eve, the seed will come and crush the head of the serpent, he will bruise his heel. And it is such a small, simple statement that gains so much breadth and it gains so much explanation as scripture goes on.

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So, when we're talking about covenant theology and this covenant works with Adam, we are using all of scripture to help formulate the interaction between Adam and Eve, right?

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So, even in Renahan's book, just to kind of add on what you were saying there, Justin, in Renahan's book, you have all of the makings of covenant language happening here, right?

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You have the creator and the created, and you have the rightful owner who can determine and demand what will be done of the created, and so he puts him in the garden, there's rules placed about him where he becomes the ruler and the headship, we'll get into this a little bit.

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But what is key here is this language of you will do, I will do, right? If you don't do,

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I will do. You hear this language, and this becomes very prominent in covenant language as you move on throughout the

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Old Testament, right? So, what is it that Adam has been told, the positive command, as it's said in the book, what has it been given to him?

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Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? Justin Perdue Yeah, so kind of by way of recap, just to where we are up to this point, and then maybe a couple of other thoughts on the covenant of works before we move on to Noah.

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The covenant of works is the conditional covenant that God made with Adam in the garden. There is Adam's natural obligation to obey his creator, but then

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God gives him positive laws that he is to do these things and then not do these. There are promises associated with keeping those positive laws, with keeping the commands and keeping the covenant, but there are sanctions involved with breaking them, namely that death will come.

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In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. So, in all of these pieces, guys, we have all of the makeup of a covenant.

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We have positive law, right, given. We have promises associated with the keeping of that positive law, and we have sanctions associated with breaking it, and you have the parties of God and Adam, so you have everything that you need there to have a covenant, though the language of covenant is not used in Genesis.

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I think we would contend that Hosea and others use covenant language about what God did in terms of his relationship to Adam, but we know that when

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Adam broke the covenant, the sanctions rolled down, and so death came to Adam. Physical death came immediately, though it would unfold over the course of Adam's life.

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Adam began to die physically at the moment in which he sinned, but in a more devastating way,

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I guess I would say, we understand that spiritually, he did die in a punctiliar fashion.

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He became corrupted in all of his faculties of mind, soul, and body, so to speak.

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The immaterial and the material part of Adam were fundamentally and tragically corrupted.

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Death became inevitable. That's right. Death and taxes are the only things that are certain, and life is uncertain now as a result of the fall of Adam, and so that's because the covenant was broken and the curse is accompaniment.

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The last thing I would say about the covenant of works before I maybe throw it back to you, John, at least in terms of a comment about the covenant itself.

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I may want to make one or two comments about its significance, but I know we're going to talk about that a lot later.

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The curses and the obligations of the covenant of works endure, meaning that the creation is still groaning, and we are still groaning.

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We are still falling. Our bodies are still dying. We are all born dead spiritually into a condition and a state of sin and corruption, and only by the grace of God through Christ are we liberated from that and promised eternal life with God.

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So the curses still endure. The obligations by way of our obligation to obey

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God still endure as our creator, but the promises that would accompany the covenant of works proper, like do these things and you really will live, those things do not endure.

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The promise of eternal life through what we do is now impossible. Now, there's a question that's been asked that's a good one.

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How would we then understand Leviticus 18 .5 and other passages where we're told, do these things and live by them, for example?

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I could go ahead and speak to that now, John, or I can wait. I don't know what makes more sense. In short,

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I think the answer to that question is that the Mosaic law that's given, the covenant

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God makes with Moses, which is where we see in Leviticus 18 .5, do these things and live.

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It's what Paul is referencing in Galatians 3, and it's what Jesus is referencing even in the

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Sermon on the Mount, et cetera. That law given is what we would say, John and I would understand as 1689 federalists, that the

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Mosaic law is in one sense, it is not the covenant of works proper, it is not the covenant of works, capital

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C, capital W itself, but it is a type of it in one sense.

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It is like the covenant of works is being reissued. A type of the covenant of works is being reissued.

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Remember, again, the purpose of the law from a reformed perspective is to what?

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The first use is to show us our sin and drive us to the Messiah, drive us to faith in Christ.

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And so the law's first and primary function is that. It's secondly given by God to restrain our corruption. It's thirdly given by God to the

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Christian as our guide for living in Christ. And so all of those functions endure. And even to say, do these things and you'll live by them is,

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I would understand in that first use of the law sense, if you did, in theory, you know, if you could, which you can't, you know, do these things perfectly, then, then you would do what

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God requires, but because you have failed, you are now driven outside of yourself to Messiah. And so it's a type in one sense, the law is a type of the covenant of works, though it is not the covenant of works itself.

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That would be my answer to that question. John, thoughts? No, no, I think that's good. Before, I think,

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I know that we'll have a lot more closing, we'll have time to close some stuff down. So what I want to do is, is interact with you guys, and then whatever that we don't cover, we'll come back to.

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Oh, the Noahic? Yeah, sure. So what's interesting about the Noahic covenant, in our covenant theology series, if you haven't heard that, you can go to our website and listen to that.

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The way in which you have to understand that there's different kinds, different types of covenants. So the covenant that's with Adam, the covenant of works, is there's an obligation required on his side, where he must meet the demands.

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And if he meets the demands, he earns for himself eternal life. If he fails to meet the demands, then he is cursed with death.

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With the Noahic covenant, it's very different. So the Noahic covenant comes out of necessity.

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As Sam says in his book, which Justin and I were having a conversation about this beforehand, that you have, this is chapter 80 in the middle, right before he goes into point two, it says, mankind reached a height of evil that threatened the extinction of the holy line.

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So the Lord destroyed humanity to preserve his promise of salvation. And now human multiplication can again serve the purpose.

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This is the new commission. So what you have here is, if you're reading

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Genesis five and six, you realize that humans have completely lost their mind.

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They are debauched, but you know, the way that God describes it is that every man is doing right with his own eyes.

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The promise given to Eve and her line has the potential of being snuffed out. And so God makes, gives this command to Noah to build the ark and he gets his family in there and he destroys the whole world.

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And then he brings Noah out of the ark. And in this, he says, listen, I'll never do this again. And my promise to you is

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I'm going to make this covenant. And it's very similar language that we see in the garden as well.

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But God says, I will make, and for the sign of the covenant, I will give you a bow in the sky, right?

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So go ahead. So that covenant, like the covenant of works in terms of, you know, there are portions of it that endure, the entirety of the

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Noahic covenant endures. It is a common grace covenant, you know, that God has made with all mankind through Noah.

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And it is a covenant through which he will preserve the creation. He introduces a kind of stability to the creation so that the promised seed of the woman, the redeemer could come and accomplish redemption.

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Yeah. And there's a lot of other theological implications going on when it comes to the Noahic covenant, which we're really not going to get into here because it's not really a part of the flow of covenant theology.

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If you guys have a question about it, I mean, Sam deals with a little bit of the new requirements dealing with retribution for murder and marriage and things like that.

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But for the sake of today's discussion, it's not really what we're going to talk about. And certainly we would see some types and shadows even in what

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God does through Noah in foreshadowing of certain kinds of redemption and things of that nature, but you're right.

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In terms of the flow of covenant theology, I think it's appropriate to kind of keep the covenant of works and the covenant of Noah together.

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And then as we move into the covenant with Abraham, we are clearly shifting gears into a different kind of arena of covenant theology, which obviously is for conversations down the road.

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Okay. What we're going to do now is grab some of your guys' questions, and then I'm sure we'll talk a lot about preaching and the implications of covenant theology, which will allow us to get a little bit more into it.

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And I certainly want to talk about the significance of the covenant of works. And I think some of the guys have already asked some questions about that.

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Like the significance of denying it. So, yeah. And in doing so, we'll probably even bring some more clarity around the covenant of works.

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The nice thing about this is that we assumed you will read the chapter or have read it, and so we won't necessarily dive into all of the details.

19:46

Matthew, you have the first question. Hey man, just raise your hand on either your phone or your computer, and that will allow us to enable your audio.

19:55

There you are. All right, my friend. Welcome. Why don't you introduce yourself and then ask us your question.

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You just have to unmute yourself there. Hey man, welcome.

20:10

Yeah. Hey Matthew. Hello, I'm Matt. I'm a pastor in a place called

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Saskatchewan, which is a province in Canada. Awesome, brother. Awesome, bro. Ask your question.

20:24

Okay, so you did bring up and answer this question, so I might add on to this.

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But my question was, since the covenant of works in the garden has been abrogated, what are we to make of the passages speaking about perfect obedience equals eternal life presently?

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And I quoted Leviticus 18 .5, Romans 2 .13, 7 .10, 10 .5,

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Luke 25 to 28. Um, yeah. So, and from the answer that you gave, uh,

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Justin, I was wondering, uh, you, you did state that it's the, it seems like the, it's the general view of the 1689

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Federalists of republication. Am I correct in saying that? Sure. Republication that's, you are correct in that.

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And by republication, the, the framers, even of the 1689 would have not understood it to be the covenant of works itself, the law, but it, but it is a reissuing of a type of the covenant of works, you know, in terms of like what

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God requires. Okay. Yeah. I was just,

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I was just curious because in fact, I'm preaching on covenant of works this Sunday. So I wanted to bang out some details.

21:36

There you go. And that's sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's a good, Joshua put an excellent comment there.

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Typological republication, not formal. Yeah. I think that's fair. Um, yeah. Yeah. Because formal republication would be the actual reissuing of the covenant of works proper.

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And that is not where we would understand the law to be. Yeah, I think I understand that.

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I knew that because, um, I've been doing some research on that and I, I saw that it wasn't the actual, because those positive laws are not there anymore, but we still have the, the reality is as how

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I say it, that the reality of the perfect obedience equals eternal life. Right.

22:17

Right. So the, even the pattern, it's almost, you could almost use the language typological, or you could even use the language of pattern, you know, the law and even language like Leviticus 18, five, for example, is, is patterned after, you know, the covenant of works in that regard that the covenant of works itself has been abrogated, as you said, in the garden of Eden.

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I would think that's a fair way to, to frame it as well. Okay. Thank you.

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That's helpful. That's a great question, Matthew. Really good question. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right.

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Um, Joshua, you had a question, um, if you wanted to answer it, um, and jump on here and dialogue about that with us, that'd be great.

22:56

Just raise your hand. If not, we can read it. There he is. Hey man. Hi guys. Josh here, um, living in Melbourne, Australia, I'm a church planter leading a congregation.

23:08

That's awesome. Yes. Um, so my question was regarding the relationship between what we're studying right now and the, the categorization of what, what

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Sam has called the covenant or sorry, the kingdom of creation, um, and then later on we get the kingdom of Christ.

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And there seems to be a difference there. You got Israel in the middle, but that aside, is there a relationship between two kingdom theology or reformed two kingdom theology, which

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I assume we might be able to connect with the kingdom of creation, which is everyone it's common, and then the kingdom of Christ, which is

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God's people specifically, uh, is there a relationship between that and right now we're talking about the covenant of works, the covenant of grace.

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Uh, is there any connection? And, and, um, if so, uh, how do we understand that?

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Yeah, that's a, that's a good observation. And I would say for those of you on here, if you guys haven't read

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Van Drunen's book, uh, you need to, you absolutely, absolutely need to read that book.

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And the reason is, is that it's going to, it's going to help you as a pastor, uh, know how to shepherd your people with the idea of, okay, this is, this is, this is part of the earthly kingdom, or we could call the kingdom of creation as he's using it here.

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And then we have the heavenly kingdom or that of Christ's kingdom. And what often what's happening, and we're going to, we're going to do a podcast on this soon.

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Theonomist, what you're doing is you end up mixing those two together. And when you do that, you, you have a lot of the craziness that's happening right now within the

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United States with, you know, somehow God has moved his, you know, the

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America is now this new theocratic nation where God is now governing us and the president is basically the pastor of the

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United States. So yeah, I would, I would absolutely agree with you, Joshua, that, that Sam is, is, is setting up here a two kingdom theology, and I think that understanding the responsibilities that we have underneath the kingdom of creation, uh, is very different.

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And that is not given to the church, that's given to all humanity. That's a really, it's a really good observation. Versus, um, the covenant of works and how that plays out later on with the imputation of Christ is given to the church, but, uh, the covenant of works, as far as Adam falling, we are all in Adam, therefore we all have all died.

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Whether you're a Christian or not, it doesn't really matter. That application applies to you. Go ahead, JP. Yeah. So I think the way that I would connect these dots, and I think you've done a lot of this already,

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Joshua, is the, the covenant of works and the curses that accompany it, obviously it still is characteristic of the, of the common kingdom to use that two kingdom language.

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Um, in one sense, the curses though, of the covenant of works are still a thing, even in the redemptive kingdom now, they will not always be right.

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So that matters. The covenant God made with Noah certainly is a common grace kind of covenant that is still the order of the day in the common kingdom, but then certainly once we get to the covenant of grace, we are talking about a redemptive kingdom reality.

26:29

Um, for sure. So as we get to the covenant of grace, where it's promised initially in Genesis three 15, and then it unfolds through farther steps throughout the rest of revelation established, accomplished in Christ, um, in the new covenant, that covenant of grace reality is without doubt, a redemptive kingdom reality.

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So there's some overlap in, I don't know that I would make like stark distinctions, right? I think there's some overlap in that.

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You know, the curses of the covenant of works obviously rule the day in the common kingdom. The Noahic covenant is still the rule of the day in the common kingdom.

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The curses though, of the covenant of works are still a thing, you know, for us, you know, because we are not yet resurrected bodily and incorruptible and perishable, et cetera.

27:13

Uh, but then the covenant of grace, certainly, I think you would only see that unfold in the redemptive kingdom from a two kingdom view, that would be for how

27:21

I would think through it. And that was just me on the fly kind of thinking through that. All right,

27:28

Joshua, if you don't have any other thoughts, we'll, uh, we'll move on to the comments or any other questions. Yeah, no.

27:35

Yeah. That's, that's really helpful. I was particularly interested in thinking about how, um, we're, we as Christians are not under the covenant of works, um, or neither do we have the consequences in terms of, um, eternal damnation or anything like that.

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But what you said, Justin, regarding that overlap is that in a sense, because we're all part of the common kingdom, we're still going to continue being affected by the covenant of works being broken.

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And, and brother, even thinking about things that are cherished, I know I trust by all the guys on this, on this zoom session here, like the saint center reality, for example, and what

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Paul describes in Romans seven, Galatians five, 17, and in particularly pointed ways, um, the fact that we are still sinners, right?

28:22

Well, why is that? It's because the curses of the covenant of works and our corrupt nature in Adam is still with us, you know, though we have been delivered from it.

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Like you said, we're not under it, but we still experience the consequences of Adam's fall and one day we will be finally delivered from that and we'll dwell in, you know, the redemptive kingdom one day as God's covenant of redemption is completely accomplished and consummated, it, you know, it's going to be epic and there will no longer be the curse in any regard.

28:53

So yeah, that's, well, I think it's good. That's just good stuff to think through. Yeah. Another, another, another good point too, is that Sam makes this in his book that, um, there are no, when

29:06

God gives Noah these new rules, there is no, if you don't obey them, sure, you know, it's kind of like, it's like you need to do this and then, you know, that's kind of, oh, it's just what

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I was going to say. I mean, God's common grace to the common kingdom exists for the purposes of the redemptive kingdom.

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I mean, if we wanted to even think about it that way, because yeah, I mean, those commands are a common grace.

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And God's common grace saying, I'm never going to destroy the earth again by a flood. The rainbow's still in the sky.

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So the Noahic covenant is still a thing that, that benefits the common kingdom, but it ultimately serves the purposes of God's plan of redemption that the redemptive kingdom benefits from.

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Because Christ would come, you know, the creation is stabilized. God will not destroy it. The seed of the woman can come.

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The redeemer can come and accomplish our salvation. So it's kind of neat to think about, you know, how all of these things so beautifully flow into God's plan of redemption that he's always had.

30:10

Hey, Joshua, what time is it there in Australia? It's like, no, it's 7 a .m.

30:17

Oh, so it's in the morning for you. Yeah, brother. Brother, I remember being, this is, we don't need to take long with this.

30:23

I mean, I remember flying from like DC to LAX to Melbourne and yeah, just the kind of like complete flipping of my body clock on that, on that particular trip a number of years ago.

30:37

And, uh, yeah. So when you were like Melbourne, I was like, man, I remember Melbourne. I have fond memories of it. And it's probably like mid morning there.

30:44

So anyway, yeah, we're in the future. We always get to the Lord's day before you guys.

30:50

So thanks for answering. Thanks for coming back to the future with us, you know? All right.

30:56

So that was a dad joke. We won't do that again. Cody. It's good to have you back on here. My friend, our resident

31:02

Presbyterian. You want to hop on here and ask your question or do you just want me to ask it in case you had a follow -up question?

31:09

Hey guys, can you hear me? Yeah, man, we can. Thank you for letting a

31:14

Presbyterian come on here. Brother, we're so excited to have you. Thank you for putting up with us.

31:20

No problem. All right. So the, the question I have is what are the consequences in preaching and in life when a minister ignores or denies the covenant of works?

31:32

I don't think we have enough time. Like we're going to have to put a, we're going to have to set a shot clock on this one because.

31:40

Yeah, no kidding. Hey man, before I mute you, go ahead and tell us where you're at and where you're pastoring.

31:47

That way the guys can say, Hey. All right. I'm from Harriett, South Dakota. I've been pastoring at First Reformed Church here.

31:56

Uh, and, uh, I'm enjoying it and we, we have a, a town of, of, of about 430 people.

32:03

Brother. Yeah. The decouple, I've never been to the one thing I learned about Cody is that is it an hour and a half or two hours to the nearest

32:12

Walmart? Hour and a half. Right. That's a, that's almost like living in another country right there, man.

32:21

You get used to it. I bet you do. Hey, thanks for the coming on Cody.

32:27

I bet you still have better internet than John. Just saying we, we deal with John's internet issues all the time.

32:34

I do have internet issues anyway. All right. Thanks Cody. Yeah. So fall out of denying the covenant of works.

32:44

Uh, okay. I mean, my first thought is if anybody's familiar with future justification, um, that immediately pops into my brain, uh, where kind of two -step justification, two -step salvation, right.

32:59

Where we by faith in Christ are justified and have access to eternal life, but we will finally acquire possession of eternal life by faith in Christ plus good works.

33:09

Um, that's an immediate theological fallout, which I could use really strong language about how ridiculous

33:17

I think that is, um, biblically and theologically, and then what that means for a preacher, what that means for a

33:23

Christian, um, my gosh, I mean, you in my, from my perspective, from a reformed understanding of human nature,

33:33

St. Center realities, things as nature. If anything depends on us and that there's anything left for us to contribute, we are all, we're up the creek and we're all damned.

33:45

And I think that you see this in guys like John Piper. I'm assuming I can say this here, John. I mean, you see this in guys like John Piper and others who do deny a covenant of works, so it has everything to do.

33:58

If you deny a covenant of works in terms of what happened to us in Adam and what he could have accomplished for us, and then that's going to have all kinds of fallout and implications for what you understand about the work of Christ in our place, so a biblical understanding of the covenant of works and a reformed understanding of the covenant of works helps us see that Christ really has done everything and that there's nothing left that could ever be required of us.

34:21

And so in my mind, my short answer is if you don't understand the covenant of works and you deny it,

34:26

I think you are setting yourself up to, as a preacher, and as a preacher in particular, to rob your people left and right, not even meaning to, of any kind of possibility of assurance and of knowing that they're safe in Christ.

34:41

I could riff on that for a long time, but John, I want you to go and then we'll just kind of maybe back to you. I think what it does is it allows you to drive all of the road, all over the theological road in an unsafe manner, really is what it does.

34:53

Because look, MacArthur and Piper, these guys are going to embrace the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

35:01

They are, but when it comes down to the practical ministry and it comes down to shepherding your people, what

35:08

I mean by driving all over the theological road is that at times MacArthur and Piper and the like will say things that make no theological sense, that it feels like it's contradicting the majority of orthodoxy and borderline sometimes feels like Catholicism, Roman Catholicism.

35:24

Because if they had an understanding of, a robust understanding of covenant of works, you wouldn't make some of these implications or applications that they make about the

35:37

Christian life when it comes to some of John Piper's stuff about final justification, some of Piper's stuff about lordship salvation.

35:43

I feel like, come from a weak understanding, what did

35:48

I say? You said Piper and Piper, you meant Piper, final justification or future justification,

35:54

MacArthur, lordship. Yep, exactly. Thank you in case someone wants to tag me on that.

36:04

This is hard to answer so that we can keep going on, but this is what I'll say to that, is that what

36:11

God is doing in setting up this covenant of works with Adam, the

36:17

New Testament picks up on it theologically and makes it very, very clear that the work of Christ, where Adam failed to obey the covenant and earn for himself righteousness forever, right?

36:31

A righteous standing for all of eternity. Earn for himself and everyone who would ever be in him.

36:38

That's right. This is where it says, even in Renahan's book, he quotes Romans five, where Adam, the first Adam failed, the second

36:47

Adam succeeded, meaning that Christ has earned for us our eternal righteousness and there's nothing else left for us to do.

36:58

Now, I know for a fact that MacArthur and Piper are going to agree with everything I just said, so please don't misunderstand.

37:05

I'm not saying they wouldn't agree with that, but because they don't hold the covenant of works, that there are times they interpret passages that will...

37:17

Sorry, I'm trying to read someone's comment there. I think that those... I might comment on the comment. Yeah, well, go ahead because I totally lost my train of thought.

37:25

Yeah. All right. You recover your train of thought. No, to Luke's comment, Piper and MacArthur are examples of non -covenantal reform theology, at least that is my opinion.

37:35

I agree with you, Luke. I mean, I think the way that I would frame it is that Piper and MacArthur are Calvinists, but I would not call them reformed, at least in any kind of historical definition.

37:46

We've talked about that a lot in various episodes of the podcast, that at a minimum to be historically reformed, you would be not only

37:52

Calvinistic, but covenantal and confessional. There's some other things that we might throw alongside that law, gospel distinction, ordinary means of grace, understandings, et cetera, but I think you're right because I assume when you say reformed in scare quotes, you mean that you're not sure they're reformed.

38:10

Yeah. Thank you, Joshua, for your joke there, brother. We appreciate that. No, John, continue with where you were going.

38:18

I mean, I think there are some more things that we can say about this because I do think it matters a ton. Yeah, and I know that Patrick Crandall asked the same thing, what is lost when the covenant of works is denied?

38:30

I think what is lost is that, and this goes back to Cody's question, what you lose is a theological framework.

38:42

For instance, here's a great example. If you deny, even if you say there's some kind of a evolution, you even lose the legitimacy of Adam and the history of Adam, then you can't legitimately say that everyone who is in Adam was born under the curse of Adam.

39:05

And the problem I have with this is that Paul makes this comparison, in Adam all died, in Christ all are made alive.

39:14

You have in Adam failed, Christ succeeds. So if Adam's not a historic figure or that concept of Adam's covenant is not historically accurate and true, then how can you say with confidence that Christ's imputation and work is true without a doubt when

39:33

Paul is making that very application? So I think you lower the gospel and you lower our standing before God, and it does allow works to creep back in.

39:44

Yeah, so a few things. What do you lose? I'd like to maybe reframe the question a little bit using Patrick Crandall's language, what do you lose when the covenant of works is denied?

39:52

I mean, I think you lose a consistent biblical understanding of the work of Jesus Christ. I think nothing less than that is at stake.

40:00

I think that we no longer see Adam as a pattern for what Jesus would accomplish.

40:06

And so Jesus is the new and better Adam, like he's way greater than Adam. Nobody would argue that or debate that, but he is following the pattern of Adam as a covenant head, as a federal head who represents everyone who would ever be in him, and so we understand in Adam's fall how tragic it was and how it affected us and how it is total, right?

40:28

We understand then the magnitude of the work of Christ for us and how he has everything, literally everything that we lost in Adam is now ours in Christ by faith.

40:37

And so Jesus either has brought us to the tree of life by keeping the covenant of works for us, or he hasn't, right?

40:47

And so in my mind, there's no middle ground here. It's either we are saved by faith in Christ completely, or there's something left for us to do and we have no hope.

40:56

And so I think biblically you lose all of that when you deny a covenant of works, and that's where you see some of the inconsistencies show up with good men.

41:06

Like I agree completely with Jason's comment. Piper and MacArthur are Calvinists, so they're not reformed. They're good men, just not reformed.

41:12

And I think you see some of this confusion of categories and some of this weird stuff creep up in their theology as a result of the denial of the covenant of works, along with some other things, but the fallout is massive.

41:24

I don't think it can be overstated. And if you love the sufficiency of Christ that we see in scripture, and if we love the fact that Jesus is enough and that he is mighty and able to save us and that he has accomplished our salvation, then in order to consistently maintain that framework,

41:38

I would argue that you need to maintain an understanding of the covenant of works. Awesome.

41:45

Well, I'm sure we're going to come back to that. I don't really have strong feelings about this at all. No, I want to keep moving.

41:51

John, Richard, did you want to get up here and ask your question? We'd love to chat with you.

41:58

You've got a long one here and it's pretty good. If not, we can read it and answer that for you.

42:06

And as we continue to read it, if you want to have a follow -up question, go for it.

42:11

So did you get a chance to read that, Justin, that top question? I'm looking at it right now and he's saying he's referencing the book page 28.

42:19

No, no, 66. He came in and corrected it. He said 66. He corrected it. Because I was like,

42:26

I don't think that's talking about him. All right.

42:31

So I'll read the question and then I'll let you follow up with it. It says, being kicked out of the garden is often viewed as a negative thing.

42:40

We were talking about this earlier, Justin, and in ways it should be. However, should it be viewed positively that God removed

42:46

Adam from the garden and did not allow him to eat of the tree of life and thus live forever in a state of sin, it is right to view the exile of humanity from the garden as a demonstration of God's grace, meaning instead of allowing

43:03

Adam to stay and compound his transgressions, so to speak, humanity was instead exiled until the perfect fulfillment of the covenant of works was fulfilled in Jesus.

43:14

The perfect obedience achieved and humanity's inheritance now being life in Christ instead of death in Adam.

43:24

Yeah, we were talking about this earlier. How about it? Justin Perdue You want me to go? Yeah, man.

43:29

You're the one that was passionate about it earlier. Justin Perdue So, this is my take,

43:35

John, and even my understanding of what Sam is getting at in the book, at least this is my interpretation of what

43:41

Sam is saying, and I think I agree with him. I'm happy for us to even have a dialogue about this.

43:47

So, I think that where we see primarily the grace of God in the garden of Eden and even the grace of God post -fall is in Genesis 3 .15,

44:00

where he curses Satan and he promises a redeemer to come. So, that's the promise of the covenant of grace right there in Genesis 3 .15.

44:10

So, we see the grace of God there, I think, most pointedly. My understanding of God's banishing

44:18

Adam and Eve, and again, I think this is consistent with Sam based on how I read him in that section of his book, my understanding of the banishment of Adam and Eve from the garden has to do with them being removed from the immediate benevolent presence of God, and that's going to be a theme throughout

44:33

Scripture. What's the point of the tabernacle and the temple? What's the point of Jesus? He took on flesh and tabernacled among us, like John 1, dwelt, tabernacled among us.

44:44

What's the point of the heavenly Jerusalem coming down? Ezekiel 48, the last verse of Ezekiel 48, the name of the heavenly city is going to be the

44:51

Lord is there. There's going to be this constant pattern throughout the rest of Scripture where the immediate benevolent presence of God with his people is being restored.

45:00

So, I think that's part of what's going on there. They're being banished from his immediate benevolent presence. But I think the banishment from the garden and then, in particular, the cherubim put there to guard the way to the tree of life should,

45:14

I think, be understood as we no longer on our own are able to make it back, in one sense, to the tree of life in order to achieve and have eternal life.

45:25

We can't do that. God is keeping us from eternal life because the covenant has been broken, and the covenant of works is all or nothing.

45:31

One transgression means it's all ruined. And it's over. And I think that's what we should see primarily in this being kept from the tree of life.

45:40

And then, certainly, we see the grace of God in the promise of the gospel in Genesis 3 .15, and we see it unfold throughout the rest of Scripture.

45:48

And I completely agree with you, brother, about everything that you're saying here about Jesus being the one who would accomplish the covenant of works perfectly.

45:58

I know that for me, I had heard many times people say that if Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life, they would have been forever captured in a state of sin.

46:09

I don't have that understanding now. I would have the understanding of, no, they're kept from the tree of life because they can no longer access it because they've broken the covenant.

46:17

And the only way back to the tree of life is through faith in Jesus, a la Revelation 2 .7, et cetera.

46:23

So that's my understanding of what's going on there. It's being banished from the presence of God. They're kept from eternal life on their own.

46:30

That's been ruined forever for us. And the only way to have eternal life is through Christ. That's my take.

46:37

I think that's what Sam is saying, but I'm happy for interaction over that. John, please clarify.

46:44

No, no, I agree. No, I think it's good. I think it's a good answer. I think we'll go with it. So Aaron, if you're ready, bud, we'll bring you on.

46:52

I know you had a couple of questions. I think we answered one of them, but are you in California yet?

46:58

I know you were getting ready to go to seminary. No, I'm just close to California.

47:05

I'm just in India right now, in Pune, India, right next to Bombay, Mumbai, if anyone's been there.

47:12

Awesome. When are you supposed to be going to, when are you going out to Westminster?

47:18

Yeah. So it's kind of, I'm just trying to figure that out because of the pandemic situation, as well as things like that.

47:30

I'm just waiting for things to get sorted. I'm aiming for Jan, but if not, then fall for sure.

47:37

So yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Well, welcome from Mumbai. I'm glad you finally got the books. Oh yeah, great.

47:44

And one piece too. And yeah, I passed some around in my church and to some pastors and they're really thankful for those resources.

47:54

That's awesome. Yeah. So thanks for that. And I had put two questions on there and it looks like both of them have been answered.

48:03

Okay. I'm happy to clarify anything though, Aaron. Yeah. Any follow -up questions? Yeah, I have a follow -up.

48:09

Aaron. Yeah. Just really quickly on your first one, is the covenant of works enforced today? I think the curses endure, the obligation of us to obey

48:18

God endures, the promise that would have been associated with keeping it, obviously is no longer available to us, except through faith in Christ who kept the covenant of works in our place, right?

48:28

So that would be my answer to that. Is there any follow -up to that part though? Did you want to?

48:34

Yes. Yes. So ever since I've been exposed to covenant theology,

48:40

I keep wondering, is there ways in which preachers can make their people feel that they're still under a covenant of works?

48:49

And how do we avoid that? Aaron, way to T1 up, brother.

48:56

Yeah, I think, who is it? Patrick. Yeah. So Patrick asked the same question.

49:03

Doesn't a denial of the covenant of works lead to a manipulative preaching that holds the judgment over the head of believers?

49:11

Yes. Yes, absolutely. I'm going to, we're probably going to riff on this for a while.

49:18

So Aaron, thanks for hopping on and asking the question, man. We'll talk to you soon, brother.

49:25

All right. Yeah, I think this kind of goes back to some of the comments we had made earlier, but I will say that what the covenant of works does for you is helps you categorize how scripture places demands on the believer.

49:46

So when you don't understand the full weight of the law, which is do this and live, do this perfectly and live, then you will lower that or by nature, you will hear it lowered in preaching.

50:05

And it sounds something like this. Yes, you are saved.

50:11

You've entered into the family, but every family member has an obligation. And the obligation sounds like if you don't do this, then your family membership can and will be called into question.

50:26

I was just discussing this with someone today about people who do a lot of apocalyptic preaching or book of revelation.

50:33

It's in times and you better get your life in order because Jesus is coming back and you don't want to be left behind.

50:40

And my question is, what do you mean? Are you ready for his return? How much ready must

50:46

I be more than what Paul has already told me? There's no condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus. So can

50:51

I be somewhat in Christ and not fully into Christ? So understanding the covenant of works is failure by Adam, complete success by Christ, granted to you by faith alone, nothing else left.

51:05

I don't know how this gets muddied, but it does in preaching. And it's really sad because the work of Christ gets lowered because we don't understand how

51:16

Christ is fulfilling where Adam failed. So that would be my initial answer to that.

51:21

All kinds of things creep back in, and I do think, Aaron, the way that you even framed it, you're right. What we end up doing when we deny a covenant of works is demanding good works of the believer in order to at least confirm, if not maintain, their justified status starts to happen all over the place.

51:42

And it becomes, again, with the best of intentions, I trust that these are good men who mean well.

51:49

These guys who profess to be Protestant and who would even stand on the rooftops and claim to be

51:56

Reformed in their theology end up sounding Roman Catholic. I mean, it ends up sounding like the language of the

52:03

Council of Trent that I know I've referenced a number of times on the podcast, session six, canon 24.

52:08

That if we are not understanding that through good works, we preserve and increase our justification, then we should be, we're anathema, we are cursed.

52:20

And no Protestant is ever going to say that we increase our justification by good works.

52:26

But there are a lot of guys that make it sound like you keep your justification in good standing. You preserve it through the works that you do.

52:34

At a minimum, it's this, like John said, it's like, you better do good works or else, dot, dot, dot, is the way that it comes across.

52:43

Whereas I do think it's entirely fine to say that in Christ Jesus, as a part of the household of God, we do have an obligation to lead a new and even a holy life, but that obligation does not equal a threat of the curses of the covenant of works rolling down upon us.

53:01

And that's the thing is that I think a lot of times the curses of the covenant of works, like death and eternal alienation from God, they're kind of over here in the preaching of a lot of guys in the way that they talk about obedience and good works.

53:17

Whereas for us, we're like, look, no, yes, we obey from the fact that we are already justified and we obey because we're in Christ Jesus who has done everything for us.

53:28

Because Jesus has done everything, we now go and live lives of good works for the honor of God and for the good of our neighbor, but that's a completely different perspective than what

53:40

I think we often see from men who deny a covenant of works. So I think it changes the tone of preaching too.

53:48

It becomes exacting and threatening versus it being something else that's more compassionate.

53:57

Justin Perdue Patrick Ryan, I know you kind of asked this question, just raise your hand if you wanted to do a follow -up or even come on and say hi, if not, we'll move on to our next question.

54:12

Yeah, to just put one last five -second comment to what you said,

54:17

Justin, I feel like Scripture has so much to offer us, and yet we tend to focus in on the smallest, one, we misinterpret it, but two, we focus in on the smallest aspect of Scripture, which is the commands for the believer and anyways.

54:39

All right, George, we've got a great question from you. I'm going to go ahead and bring you in so you can ask your question.

54:47

So tell us, introduce yourself to us and ask your question. Hey, fellas. My name is

54:52

George Sisson. I am from Jamestown, New York. I feel like I'm the only

54:57

Reformed guy up in New York, but that's all good. It's a dry and weary land, let me tell you. Me and Tim Keller.

55:05

So what I'm currently doing is we run a Bible study, both online and in person, holding more so to the in -person is our first and foremost thing.

55:17

Everything else online is just extra. And people don't even know what Reformed is, let alone

55:22

Calvinism. And so when we started doing this, we just started walking through the book of Luke.

55:29

And, you know, I'm here, I'm learning things from you guys. I'm learning things from these books. This book right now is shredding me, which is phenomenal in the best way.

55:37

Told you it would. And so we're walking through the scriptures and this is actually going to be showing itself this coming

55:48

Tuesday when we start vetting out Luke 536 through the end of five. So this stuff is so unknown that people who believe in dispensational theology don't even know to call it that.

56:04

That that's how unknown the covenantal theology is. And so for an area that is, you know, quite frankly, inept in this, in this sphere, what would be a good and gracious way to really just start the ball rolling to, you know, reveal these things in the most loving and graceful way, but not bypass anything that's important.

56:28

Yeah. I mean, this sounds weird, like we're plugging our own stuff, but this is why we did the introduction to covenant theology.

56:36

We wanted to try and make it noncombative, super accessible, and not long.

56:43

And coming very shortly, we will have a study guide that goes with it. So you can take a small group through it.

56:50

But, you know, one of the things that I know even Sam, Sam put this out on his

56:55

Twitter feed recently, just frustration with a lot of covenant, I would say reformed information is just, there's just not a lot of accessible information out there to try and digest this to people who have a zero, like zero knowledge and they are so dispensational.

57:13

They don't even know it. Right. They just think they believe the Bible. And I'm like, oh, you have been so influenced by dispensational theology.

57:21

It's, it's, it's, you don't even know it. And I think showing very, very simple, low level concepts,

57:30

I think what I would do with anybody, and I do this in my preaching all the time, I have a lot of new people coming in that are not, have a reformed background, and I'm always pointing them to the promises of God, because promises are something we can digest really easy.

57:44

Covenant sounds weird, right? Sounds like a cult. So promises are really easy for people to digest.

57:50

So I always go to the promise that's made to Adam and Eve. And I always ask the simple question of how does

57:56

God keep that promise He made to Adam and Eve? That's, this is the biggest question in the whole universe, right?

58:02

If he's going to kick them out of the garden, how is he going to put them back in the garden? And he says, well, he's going to do it through the seed of Eve.

58:08

Well, how does he do that? And if you get people asking those types of questions of, okay, how do

58:14

I answer that question from the Bible? You can start teaching them covenant theology without using all of the terms and all the language, because once they gain a concept that all of the

58:24

Bible is about God fixing what Adam and Eve destroyed or what Adam destroyed, that's what the whole

58:29

Bible is about, redemption, then once they see that overarching view of scripture, which is redemption, you can then start going, hey, by the way, there's like a lot of great detail in here.

58:43

And once you create that hunger, I think you can start getting into more of the technical language.

58:49

But if they don't have the general idea that all of scripture is about God fulfilling this promise that He gives to Adam in the garden and Eve, then, you know, the

58:58

Bible is just a mixture of, go ahead Justin, just a mixture of stories. So I think that,

59:05

George, your observation that many people have absorbed dispensational theology without even knowing it is right.

59:13

John, you've alluded to that already. There are historical reasons for this. The conservative non -confessional church in America, which is evangelicalism,

59:22

I mean, those things are basically synonymous, was dominated in the 20th century in a lot of ways by dispensational theology, and there are reasons for that historically that we don't really have time to, at least from my perspective, and I'm not alone in them, as to why that became a thing.

59:37

So what that has meant is that the majority of, again, your conservative non -confessional Christians, aka evangelicals, have been heavily influenced by dispensational thinking.

59:47

And that's obvious in a number of ways. And so they don't even really, they're not aware of the water they're swimming in, right?

59:53

And so what you want to do as a preacher or a leader or a teacher, as you're even alluding to in your question, you want to gently and compassionately come alongside them, you don't want to be rough with them, you want to be tender and gentle and help them see.

01:00:06

And I think what I would want to drive at, at a most basic level, there's a lot of ways I can answer your question, but at the most basic level,

01:00:13

I want to, what's the biggest difference between dispensational theology and covenant theology? I think that dispensational theology sees tons of discontinuity in how

01:00:24

God accomplishes redemption. And there's all these various dispensations, right? And things are very different from one dispensation to another, whereas covenant theology rightly sees the consistency of the plan of God and redemption from before the world began to the end of revelation.

01:00:41

And what we can do is start showing people that consistency. There has always been one plan.

01:00:48

The covenant of redemption and eternity past is a thing, most clearly described in Ephesians chapter one. And then we begin to see that covenant of redemption unfold in time and space through the covenant of works and the covenant of grace and help people see this unfold through scripture, through types and shadows and all these kinds of things finally established in Christ.

01:01:07

But this has always been God's plan to save the elect through Messiah. And so I think as we just show them that and show them the consistency and the wisdom and the beauty of God's plan, they start to connect some dots and say, oh, well, that doesn't jive with this other stuff that I've just kind of absorbed, and then they start to ask some good questions and start to have some good wrestling.

01:01:30

So if it were me, that's where I would start, is with that high level stuff. And George, message me sometime on like Facebook or Twitter or whatever, and I'd be happy to talk with you in more detail if you want.

01:01:45

Thanks guys. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, give us the name of your website.

01:01:53

I know you've given it to me in the past. Yeah, BeaconBibleStudy .org. I'll throw it up in the chat too.

01:02:00

But also just on a side note, keep me in prayer, guys. I just started seminary last month. Awesome, brother.

01:02:07

We need more Reformed preachers out there. Amen. Yeah, we need more Reformed preachers in my seminary too.

01:02:14

Where are you going to school? So I'm doing a bivocational ministry program through Veritas College.

01:02:21

They're Reformed leaning, which basically means they believe in total oppression. Are they associated with a graduate institution?

01:02:30

No, I don't think so. Actually, John, they're based out of Texas, but I'm taking it through a satellite through Nashville.

01:02:37

Oh, there you go. So I'll actually be down in Nashville, June 28th through July 9th. So you better call me.

01:02:43

All right, buddy. Talk to you soon. Thanks, guys. All right. It's great, dude.

01:02:50

I'm just going to say this. What a great radio voice. He needs to get into radio. All right,

01:02:58

Luke, did you want to come on and ask us your question? If so, go ahead and raise your hand. If not, then we will answer it for you.

01:03:09

Oh, he had it up. Let's see here. Where did he go? There he is. No, that's not him. There he is.

01:03:15

All right, Luke. Can you hear me? We can hear you just fine. I am a future church planner, hopefully attending seminary at Reformed Baptist Seminary Online, living in Bellingham, Washington.

01:03:29

And I teach a small group of about 20 people every Sunday. What part of Washington state is that?

01:03:36

Bellingham is about almost as far left and north as you can get. We're right below the border.

01:03:42

Okay. And so one of the things in teaching through first Peter, he obviously goes back and forth telling people to live, not as they used to live, not in sin.

01:03:54

And given that covenant of grace, Christ's sufficiency, the imputation of his righteousness, how do we motivate people to be obedient to Christ as opposed to the fatalism that you may go to where you say, well,

01:04:12

Christ did everything so I can continue to live however I want, or maybe not even show any special caution toward being holy.

01:04:25

Justin, I have a lot of thoughts. You might want to jump in there before I do. Brother, I don't know.

01:04:32

I mean, I think whichever one of us goes first, the other is going to be excited to jump in. Why don't we maybe pepper this back and forth a little bit,

01:04:41

John, just so that it's not one of us monologuing too long. One brief thought, and I'm not trying to nail this to the wall, but I want to just even start with this.

01:04:55

Luke, I trust you agree, and I trust every man on this session agrees with this, that when the redeemed hear of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, and when the redeemed hear, he's done everything, and we're safe, and there's nothing left for me to do, our response,

01:05:12

I'm not saying that we never find sin attractive. Do not misunderstand me, but I think the response of the redeemed to that message of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ is not, great, let me go send the daylights out of the thing.

01:05:25

The response to that message is, my God, what you have done for me, and what

01:05:31

Christ has done for me. Now may I give me the grace that I might live for him, and live in him, and love my neighbor, and do good.

01:05:41

So, in one sense, I'm already pointing out some of the motivations of gratitude and love, joy, a concern for God's honor, a genuine birth in my heart of love for neighbor in a way that didn't exist before, because God's Spirit's in me now.

01:05:57

Then in addition to that, there are other things that I would want to throw in there, that I actually think that safety and security are motivators for obedience, to say that you're safe actually frees us to just go and do good.

01:06:15

It seems counterintuitive to the human mind that is wired in such a legal way, because we tend to see the only motivators for obedience being merit or the escape of punishment, but for the redeemed,

01:06:29

I think the motivations are different, and I've already highlighted some, and I want to give John a chance to jump in, and then

01:06:35

I may come back in after that. Yeah, well, we always disassociate the commands of God and the scriptures from the people of God.

01:06:48

So, when you hear Paul say, I want to make nothing known among you except for Christ and him crucified, he is saying,

01:06:55

I want to make nothing among you except for the imputation of Christ's righteousness on your behalf.

01:07:02

I mean, when he says Christ and him crucified, he's talking about all of the glories of the gospel, and he's telling that to a pagan heathen church who is all kind of doing unholiness in all kinds of ways.

01:07:15

That's to the Corinthians that he says that to, and then when he's talking to the Galatians who are underneath a bunch of law, he goes after the gospel again too, he goes, how is it you've begun by Christ and now you're going to perfect yourself by works of the law?

01:07:30

So, he is in both areas, he goes after those who are lawless and those who are living under law on both sides, using

01:07:38

Christ as the motivation to bring them back into the center, which is into Christ. So, I would say the

01:07:45

New Testament always uses gospel preaching and gospel people. The biggest problem I have is that people assume they can actually do good works on their own and that the good works are for themselves.

01:07:59

I don't actually think people should do good works for God. That's been done for in Christ.

01:08:07

The commands for good works are for the use and the accomplishment of God's people for the mission of one, encouraging and strengthening our faith, and then number two, for the advancement of the gospel.

01:08:20

We always turn holiness into this, you better or else attitude. You better be holy or else

01:08:26

God's going to thump you out of the kingdom. And that's just not how Paul or any of the New Testament writers talk about holiness.

01:08:35

And so, I like to kind of answer your question in a different way that the understanding of the covenant of grace, the freeing nature of it allows you to imperfectly love your neighbor and love

01:08:48

God and not feel the burden of requirement because that requirement's been met by Christ, so don't live underneath that burden, carry around with you the freedom of the grace so that you can love not hindered by sin.

01:09:03

I always say, if you've been set free from sin and you understand that you've been set free from sin, why do you want to go back into it willingly?

01:09:12

That doesn't make any sense to me. So, piggybacking on some of that, so like just bullet points, why obey?

01:09:19

Love, joy, gratitude, safety, security, peace, rest. I mean, those things propel us forward in good works and obedience.

01:09:29

But then to pick up on what John's saying a little bit there, my mind goes to Romans six, where after talking about imputation,

01:09:39

Paul anticipates the objection, should we sin all the more that grace may abound by no means.

01:09:46

His response is never with law. His response is union with Christ. You've been united to Christ.

01:09:51

You've been set free from the dominion of sin. It no longer, like John was saying, it no longer has dominion over you.

01:09:59

And he says that in Romans six, 17, you've now become obedient from the heart. And so on the one hand,

01:10:04

I'm like, John, obey because you actually can now. Like you couldn't before.

01:10:10

And like, obey and do good works because you're able. And your good works actually does something.

01:10:16

Like before, your good works does nothing because it's not perfect. Your imperfect works actually accomplish something now, which is the advancement of God's kingdom.

01:10:25

And the reason that's true is like in Ephesians 2 .10 reality, where we walk in the good works that had been prepared beforehand for us to walk in, because we are

01:10:34

God's workmanship in Christ. So even there, I think we see that our obedience only happens by God working in and through us.

01:10:41

We don't do it on our own. We participate in it, but God does it through us. And the last thing that I'll say too is, you know,

01:10:49

I am unashamed. I know John is too. I unashamedly have a monergistic understanding of sanctification, not just justification.

01:10:57

And so by that, I mean, God does it. I participate in it. Just like I participate in life by being alive.

01:11:03

I participate in my sanctification. I'm now alive and I'm participating in it in that sense, but God does it.

01:11:10

And so I understand biblically that God will sanctify all those whom he has justified.

01:11:15

And our sanctification is guaranteed to us. But again, that guarantee does not produce apathy.

01:11:21

It produces freedom and joy and peace and rest. And now I'm liberated to go love and do good works.

01:11:28

And that's how I know John and I like to talk about obedience and good works and what propels us forward in that.

01:11:35

And we aim to do that on the podcast and also in our preaching and in our conversations with our people in our local church contexts.

01:11:43

Luke, thoughts, anything? Yeah. And one other comment I'll put in there is that 2

01:11:50

Peter talks about these outflowings of the gospel, right? So we have the sovereign

01:11:55

God who comes in and saves us. This is verse three. He's doing his work in us.

01:12:01

And then he says, add to your faith, all of these great commands of obedience. And then he says, if you're not doing this, you have forgotten that you have been cleansed and you're ineffective.

01:12:12

You're not ineffective at cleansing yourself and you're not ineffective in saving yourself.

01:12:18

You're ineffective of doing the actual work that God has given you, which is loving your neighbor. That's what you're ineffective in.

01:12:25

But we always make it sound like, oh, you're ineffective of securing your salvation or proving that you're a believer.

01:12:30

The whole snuffing out the lazy Christian, it's just not what Peter's getting after, or Paul, for that sake.

01:12:38

All right. So we're running out of time. Why don't we just go ahead and grab Matthew's last two questions and just like -

01:12:43

Hey, Luke, thanks for your question, brother. Luke, thank you. So first question that Matthew has on here, and then we'll do some like final cleanup.

01:12:54

So the tree of life is symbolic. Well, if by that you mean symbolic and not real. Now, I understand it to be real and also for it to be a covenant symbol.

01:13:02

I mean, just like, you know, there are other things in the scripture that are real things. The snake in the wilderness. Snake in the wilderness is real.

01:13:09

Christ uses that as a symbol. Correct. They're real and they're symbols, you know, so both are true, I think, is my answer of the tree of life.

01:13:17

Yes. So then what do we make of the passages that speak of earning rewards in heaven?

01:13:22

We did an entire podcast on that not long ago, didn't we, John, called Fearing the Judgment Seat? And so for our purposes now, given, yeah, so I would say,

01:13:30

Matthew, give that a listen. Maybe you have, and maybe it was unsatisfactory. If it was unsatisfactory, I don't know that we'll be able to say anything satisfactory now.

01:13:38

But that was our take on that, you know, like heavenly reward and the judgment, you know, according to works and everything else,

01:13:46

Fearing the Judgment Seat. It's released in the last two, three months, probably. And yeah, Matthew, I see you said you haven't heard it.

01:13:53

Give that one a listen, brother. And if you are unsatisfied with what we say there, you could always message us and we could talk directly about it, or we could even maybe come back to it, even in thinking about the covenant of grace, maybe.

01:14:04

Just a thought. Because I know we were like out of time. Guys, thank you for these awesome questions.

01:14:10

Yeah, way more interactive this time than last time. So thank you. This was fantastic. You guys need to get hopped up on whatever you got hopped up on today and keep these questions flying, man.

01:14:24

It's fun. All right. Well, closing thoughts, JP. Okay.

01:14:32

Closing thoughts. The covenant of works is massively important. I think we've been clear on that.

01:14:38

And it's a pattern for the work of Christ. It gives us that framework through which we would understand what

01:14:44

Jesus has done for us. A denial of it has tons of fallout. And in my mind, theologically and biblically, the sufficiency of Christ, and thereby our rest in him, is very much linked to a proper understanding of the covenant of works.

01:15:00

That's one final thought. John? Yeah, I think that all, and I'm really excited to hear that there is,

01:15:08

I don't know if it was John, I can't remember who it was, said they were preaching on the covenant of works. And man, that just does my heart well, because guys, you don't want to lead.

01:15:16

I know you guys know this, but you don't want to lead, you don't want to lead your people to just know what the covenant of works is.

01:15:26

The covenant of works should lead you to have this ultimate rest in Christ.

01:15:33

The whole reason that I wanted to start this, and Justin and I had this conversation about grabbing pastors and guys who want to be church planners and having theological discussions where we can really start unfolding.

01:15:46

Here, I honestly believe this, the covenant of works is what makes the gospel so glorious.

01:15:54

It is that coloring. You go from black and white to color. You go from sign language to sound.

01:16:01

I mean, it just brings out so much and it will influence the way that you preach, the way that you think, the way that you study scriptures, the way that you interact with your

01:16:11

Bible. Go ahead. Justin Perdue No, I was going to say, even in evangelicalism, in Calvangelicalism, we love the first Adam and then there's the second

01:16:22

Adam. I would just contend that I don't even know what you mean by a first and second Adam if you don't hold to a covenant of works understanding.

01:16:29

I think that what we're able to do with a robust understanding of the covenant of works is paint an accurate picture of the horror of the fall, how devastating it was, what it has done to us, and the ruin that we are in, in terms of the state and condition of sin and alienation from God.

01:16:46

And then like John's saying, to John's point, how much more glorious then is the work of Christ? And even as we watch scripture unfold and the plan of redemption unfold, by the time

01:16:55

Jesus shows up and he gets baptized and he says, I'm doing this to fulfill all righteousness, and then he is tempted in the wilderness where Adam was tempted in a paradise,

01:17:04

Adam fell and Jesus succeeds, we are like, oh my gosh, the Redeemer's here.

01:17:10

How incredible is this? And I don't know, if anything, it just magnifies Christ and his work in a way that I think is all kind of good.

01:17:19

Well, here's just a little bit of a, he didn't get into the book, but a little bit of candy for you, theologically fun.

01:17:26

I preached a sermon on this. You can go back and I think it's called The Story of Two Gardens, I think is the title of the sermon.

01:17:34

And so you have the temple that's being set up, God's temple, the presence of God there, and Adam and Eve fall in the garden.

01:17:43

And how do they fall? They fall by taking of the tree, the disobedience, taking of the tree.

01:17:51

And part of the cursing of the tree, the part of the cursing of the man is thorns and thistles will grow up.

01:17:57

Well, you start following this theme throughout all of scripture. I think next week this comes out,

01:18:03

Justin, the podcast on did Christ have to die on a cross? And so you guys get a little extra insight onto this, this podcast that comes out next week.

01:18:12

But you start seeing this theme of tree, garden, thorns throughout scripture.

01:18:18

As you fast forward to Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, he's lifting up the curse up on a tree.

01:18:27

But for the sake of time, you go fast forward to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. They come and this is where the

01:18:34

Christ begins to pay for our sins. He's bound. He is then accused of being accursed.

01:18:44

They end up hanging him on a tree because Deuteronomy 21 says, cursed is everyone who hanged on the tree.

01:18:50

Paul says in Galatians 3, cursed be one who hangs on the tree. And what do they put on his head as King?

01:18:57

A crown of thorns, right? A symbol of the curse. So from the garden in the tree and the thorns to the garden, to the tree, cursed on the thorns.

01:19:08

I mean, the covenant of works is so permeating throughout all of scripture. It's hard not to see it once you see it, the symbolism that's there.

01:19:16

It's unbelievable and it's beautiful and it's glorious. And I don't think we're trying to read that into the text.

01:19:22

Paul literally says, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree and you see the symbolism that's being used there constantly.

01:19:28

So I don't think we're reading into the text. It's allowing us to see the doctrine come out of the text. I mean,

01:19:38

I think we've at least hinted at this, that even the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, understood in a

01:19:46

Pauline framework, is dependent upon this understanding of the covenant of works, which we could maybe get into at another time, even in the covenant of grace.

01:19:54

Again, I've said this before and I think I still stand by it, that Jesus fulfills a covenant of works in the covenant of grace in order to accomplish the covenant of redemption.

01:20:08

So there's going to be further opportunity for us to think through the work of Christ and imputation and how it relates to him fulfilling a covenant of works for us.

01:20:17

It's just massively important stuff. Well, one last thing. When Jesus raises from the dead and fulfills the curse and pays for it, fulfills the covenant of works, where is he seen?

01:20:31

Talking to the woman in the garden. So I think, guys, here's maybe a parting shot for me.

01:20:39

If any of you brothers ever do Christmas Eve services or something, let your meditation message practically every

01:20:46

Christmas Eve center around the plan of redemption and even this kind of idea of a story of two atoms.

01:20:53

Why is it a big deal that God the Son took on flesh? It's to do this, to fulfill a covenant of works as a man in the place of men.

01:21:02

So preach that and herald that. Don't let the birth narrative of Christ become the

01:21:07

Christian version of Twas the Night Before Christmas. Enough of that nonsense. Let's just preach redemption.

01:21:14

Seriously, let's preach redemption and preach this message with respect to the incarnation of Jesus when we think about it in a particular way, like in a

01:21:22

Christmas Eve service, because I know I've done that. My messages the last two or three years, like Christmas is about redemption, a story of two atoms, et cetera.

01:21:29

I mean, we get gospel on Christmas Eve, man. We don't just talk about the birth of Christ. It's like, that's great, but why was he born to do this?

01:21:39

Born to die upon Calvary, as the song says. Before we get too wound up in this thing, I know we got to get off of here, but fun stuff.